Resolve of Afghan women in the face of erasure: Three years since the Taliban takeover

Afghanistan is beset with overlapping crises linked to and compounded by deepening gender inequalities. At least 70 Taliban decrees, directives, and practices target the lives, bodies, and choices of women and girls. The mounting women’s rights crisis challenges progress on all Sustainable Development Goals and indicators.

Despite this dire situation, Afghan women show an unwavering and even growing resolve, from the simple act of leaving their homes to continuing to run businesses and organize communities to meet essential needs and pursue equality.

This policy paper marks three years since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. It aims to alert the international community to what diminished attention to the women’s rights crisis and limited investments in women’s resilience mean for gender equality and the status of women and girls, and men and boys—as well as Afghanistan’s development more broadly. It is intended to guide international actors with an array of formal mandates and responsibilities in consistently aligning all policies and actions with women’s human rights.

Efforts to mobilize support for women in Afghanistan must be careful and targeted, not least because the situation fundamentally challenges the efficacy and relevance of the global gender equality and women’s rights architecture and the multilateral system, all at a time when authoritarianism and autocracies are rising, and the backlash against gender equality transcends borders.